Chereads / Difficulty setting : Calamity mod / Chapter 17 - Chapter 17 : 1243 days later

Chapter 17 - Chapter 17 : 1243 days later

Jason crouched at the forest's edge, his lone eye scanning the barren wasteland before him. The hollow socket where his other eye had been throbbed dully, a constant reminder of past violence. His fingers tightened around the crude spear, its rough surface digging into his calloused palm.

"Just one more day," he muttered to himself, voice cracked from disuse. "One more hunt. One more meal."

The words rang hollow even to his own ears. How many times had he repeated that same mantra? 

1243 days.

A flicker of movement caught his attention. There, in the distance was the same bird as always, its stubby wings flapping uselessly as it pecked at the parched earth. Jason's stomach clenched painfully, a primal hunger overriding all other thoughts.

Slowly, carefully, he began his approach. Each step was calculated, his body low to the ground. The relentless sun beat down upon him, sweat trickling down his back. His cracked lips moved silently.

"Quiet now. Quiet and quick. Like before. Like always."

The creature remained oblivious, engrossed in its eating. Jason's grip on the spear tightened as he closed the distance. Twenty feet. Fifteen. Ten.

With a sudden burst of speed, he lunged forward. The spear found its mark with a sickening thud. Warm blood spurted onto the sand, staining it a dark crimson.

"I'm sorry," Jason whispered, though he wasn't sure who he was apologizing to anymore. "I have to survive. I have to..."

He knelt beside the fallen creature, its eyes already glazing over. As he began the grim task of preparing his meal, a bitter taste filled his mouth. Was this all that was left for him? This endless cycle of kill or be killed?

"No," he growled, shaking his head violently. "Don't think. Just survive. One more day. One more hunt. One more meal."

But even as he repeated the words, a small part of him wondered how much longer he could cling to this hollow existence before the last remnants of his humanity slipped away entirely.

Jason trudged back to his cave, the weight of his kill matched only by the heaviness in his chest. The desolate landscape blurred around him as his mind drifted.

"What am I becoming?" he muttered, his voice hoarse from disuse. "An engineer... I was supposed to build things, not... this."

His thoughts fragmented, images of blood-stained sand mixing with memories of classrooms and blueprints. He stumbled, catching himself on a rocky outcropping.

"Focus, Keller," he hissed, pressing his forehead against the cool stone. "You're slipping. Losing it."

The cave's entrance loomed before him, a maw of darkness. Jason hesitated, his one good eye darting around nervously.

"Anyone there?" he called out, knowing the futility of his question. Only the wind answered, whistling through the barren trees.

Inside, he settled into a shadowed corner, his back pressed against the rough wall. The silence pressed in on him, broken only by his ragged breathing.

"I used to hate group projects," Jason said to the empty air, a mirthless chuckle escaping his lips. "Now I'd give anything for... for someone. Anyone."

He closed his eye, memories washing over him. "There were footsteps once, weren't there? Or am I imagining that too?"

The cave offered no response, its stillness a stark reminder of his isolation.

"Maybe it's better this way," he whispered, his voice barely audible. "No one to see what I've become. No one to... to judge."

Jason hugged his knees to his chest, rocking slightly. "Is this all there is now? Just... surviving? Until what?"

The question hung in the air, unanswered and unanswerable. As the shadows lengthened around him, Jason Keller, once a promising engineering student, now a hollow-eyed survivor, sat alone with his despair, slipping further into the abyss of his own fractured mind.

Jason's trembling hand reached out, fingers grazing the cold stone wall. The rough texture beneath his fingertips sent a shiver through him, a stark reminder of the harsh reality he now inhabited.

"Remember... remember how walls felt before?" he muttered, his voice cracking. "Smooth. Clean. Not like this... this endless rock."

He traced the jagged surface, each crevice and bump a cruel mockery of the world he'd left behind. The fading light cast long shadows across his gaunt face, accentuating the hollowness of his cheeks.

A pebble skittered across the cave floor, the sound echoing unnaturally loud in the silence. Jason flinched, his heart racing.

"Just a rock," he assured himself, but his eye darted nervously around the dimming cave. "Nothing else here. No one else. Just me."

The last rays of sunlight retreated, plunging the cave into an eerie twilight. Shadows danced on the walls, morphing and stretching in ways that made Jason's skin crawl.

"They're not real," he muttered, squeezing his right eye shut. "It's all in your head. You're losing it, Keller. Losing it fast."

When he opened his eye again, the darkness had deepened. He stared at the flickering shadows, feeling disconnected from his own body, as if he were watching himself from afar.

"Is this how it ends?" he asked the emptiness. "Just... fading away? Into nothing?"

The silence that answered was deafening, a void that threatened to swallow him whole. As night fell completely, Jason Keller sat motionless, teetering on the precipice of oblivion, alone with the echoes of his fading sanity.

A restless energy surged through Jason's weary limbs, propelling him to his feet. His legs, stiff from disuse, carried him towards the pond with halting steps.

"What am I doing?" he whispered, his voice hoarse from lack of use. "Where am I going?"